This is the comparison between the GoPro Hero 7 Black and the DJI Osmo Action digital cameras. Both are the action cameras and both are special as the video camera.

GoPro Hero7 Black	DJI Osmo Action
BUY NOW	BUY NOW
PROS	PROS
Great 4K video and image quality. HyperSmooth is very effective. TimeWarp is great fun. Useful UI improvement.	Excellent image stabilization. Premium, waterproof design .Great for vlogging.
CONS	CONS
Can struggle with voice commands. Screen unresponsive at times. Slow-motion footage only output through app or software. Many cheaper options.	Major lag when EIS is active at max resolution. App connection failed across devices. Limited accessory options.

Expert Reviews of GoPro Hero 7 Black:

By BackPackerBanter  
Sure it’s still not perfect – but this is easily my favourite GoPro yet and has firmly found its place in my travel kit list as well as allowing me to shed some extra weight and space in my hand luggage, which any traveller will tell you is always welcome!

By TechAdvisor   
So the GoPro Hero 7 Black isn’t hugely different from the last model. In fact, when it comes to design and core specs, it’s pretty much the same. The new features are on the inside and within the software. Namely HyperSmooth brings excellent stabilisation that will be a real boon for anyone using the camera in situations where a gimbal isn’t an option.

By ExpertReview
Buttery smooth video, waterproofing and HDR photography skills – the Hero 7 Black is the best action camera on the market.

By Wired
Ultimately, there’s nothing not to like here, but it feels more like an iterative upgrade rather than a whole new camera. It’s like when iPhone goes from the 6 to the 6S, or from the X to the XS. That’s not a bad thing. The Hero6 Black was our number one recommended action cam last year, and the Hero7 Black is the same camera, but better. What’s unknown is if these updates will be enough to keep the Hero on the throne throughout another year.

By Mashable  
The GoPro Hero 7 Black’s built-in stabilization is so good it eliminates the need for expensive and clunky gimbals.

Expert Reviews of DJI Osmo Action: 

By The Verge
This should be a wake-up call for GoPro. It’s taken the California company many years to get to this point. The fact that DJI got this close on its very first try should make the people at GoPro nervous and send them scrambling to introduce some real innovation for the Hero8 (likely coming this fall). Personally, as a consumer, I’m really looking forward to this arms race.

By Engadget   
DJI’s first action camera comes out fighting, with a price and feature set that should grab GoPro’s attention. Neat features like a small front display and HDR video set it apart, and compatibility with its rival’s accessories will make the transition easy. But there are some glaring omissions, including GPS, limited voice controls and basic social sharing options. If you’re looking for a GoPro alternative, the Action is a solid choice. For everyone else, it’ll come down to some minor differences.

By Trusted Reviews  
It doesn’t blow the GoPro Hero 7 Black out of the water, but the Osmo Action’s all-round performance and lower price mean it’s our new number one action camera. Its front screen is a real boon for vlogging, and in most situations its video quality and stabilisation matches GoPro’s flagship (without surpassing it). Speedy operation and a polished interface also make it the most user-friendly action camera around. In some areas (livestreaming, hyperlapse quality, accessories), GoPro still has the edge, but if you need a new waterproof camera for summer adventures then the Osmo Action is the best around.

By PCMag
The DJI Osmo Action is a small, waterproof action camera with 4K video and a full-color front LCD, but its stabilization isn’t quite as good as rival GoPro.

By CameraJabber
Now, if you’re looking for the ultimate action camera, you have a choice of two, either the GoPro Hero 7 Black or the DJI Osmo action. At present when it comes to features, the GoPro still edges ahead, but the high video quality and being part of the larger DJI ecosystem certainly makes the Osmo action very appealing.

Detail Review:

INTRODUCTION:

GoPro Hero 7 Black

This camera is the digital camera of GoPro and also continuous model of the GoPro Hero. This has lot more new features than the previous model and the working of some features are more impressive than the previous models like video stabilization.   

DJI Osmo Action

This is the digital action camera from DJI and it’s also fully waterproof, so it will be useful for under water or water related shots. This camera can record 60 frames per second at full 4k. It choose time-lapse images, a whole bunch of other features, you can even talk to it and control it with your voice.

DESIGN & HANDLING:

GoPro Hero 7 Black

A lot has been changed to this new GoPro on the inside, but as you can see, it does not look that different compared to previous generations like the Hero 5 Black, the Hero 6 Black or the Hero 2018. The only difference is that this time they actually made it Black. So, not much has been changed to the design, and that’s a good thing, because it already was pretty good.

This identical form factor also means that you can reuse the same accessories like rechargeable batteries for the Hero 5, Hero 6, Hero 7 and Hero 2018. You can reuse your filters, mounts, sticks and more and that’s a great thing because GoPro accessories are not cheap.

DJI Osmo Action

The camera is really lightweight, it is really small. So, it’s really easy to take to wherever you may be and it’s super easy to use. The entire design of this camera is similar with the design of Hero 7. The Osmo uses the rear lens type and also the housing very similar to the GoPro Hero 7. You also get the small clip comes with the camera to pick the camera correctly or hold the camera steadily.

GENERAL FEATURES:

GoPro Hero 7 Black

Like with previous generations, this one is waterproof out of the box. This means that you don’t need an external case to put it directly into the water. This works until the depth of 10 meters, or 33 feet. Unlike the GoPro Hero 5, the Hero 7 survived all the underwater crash testing and it kept working perfectly.

GoPro also introduced a new UI on the Hero 7. It’s a simplified and improved version of the UI that you will find on a Hero 5 and 6. I already liked it on the Hero 5 and 6, and I like this one even more. Now the menus are even more clear and easier to use.

Like with the previous versions, the GoPro app still works fine. After connecting, you can remotely control your camera, change the settings or browse your media and inside Quick Stories, you can now add stickers to your video. You can add things such as a speed tracker, a compass or a mini-map.

DJI Osmo Action

Probably one of these dead art features of the DJI Osmo action is that it has two LCD displays. It’s got a 1.4 inch display on the front and a 2.24 inch touchscreen LCD display on the back. The front screen is not a touchscreen and you can only have one screen active at a time.

All of your videos and all of your images are going to be stored on a micro SD card with the maximum capacity of 256 gigabytes. The camera is fully waterproof up to a depth of about 36 feet and it’s ready to be used in temperatures as cold as 14 degrees Fahrenheit. The battery can be roofed and is located at the bottom of the DJI Osmo action and you can charge it up simply by plugging the camera in via USB C. The battery should last a film for around 60 minutes at full 4k with 60 frames per second with Rocksteady enabled. You can just pop out the battery and exchange it.

You can also control the DJI Osmo action from your phone using the free DJI mimo app or if you really want to you can actually just talk to it, it understands about five commands both in English and in Mandarin.

The interface is on the back because it is a touchscreen but also it’s really nicely laid out. So, you can swipe in the panels from the side and adjust your settings or your mode or the camera options, it’s really easy to use. I really enjoyed using the touchscreen that’s also bright enough to see when you’re out in daylight.

IMAGE QUALITY:

GoPro Hero 7 Black

GoPros are best known for their video capabilities, but they can also shoot photos and for this Photo mode GoPro added a new feature. For this one, they came up with the name ‘Super Photo Mode’. This mode improves your photos with automatic image enhancements. In most cases this worked very well. But if you like some more control, you can also shoot photos in RAW mode, which you can improve manually in post. I still don’t think that anybody will buy a GoPro for the images only. But it’s still nice to shoot a photo now and then.

This also has the Portrait mode. If you turn the GoPro in sideways, you can record in Portrait mode. This might be useful for apps like Instagram, for example.

DJI Osmo Action

The camera is equipped with the one over two point three inch CMOS sensor which is 12 megapixels which is actually just a little bit smaller than what you find in an iPhone X s. In terms of images, you can capture a resolution of up to 4000*3000 either in DNG RAW or JPEG and all of the movies and all of the video you film will be stored in an mp4 format.

In terms of the image quality, in high contrast situations, I felt that the sky ended up usually a little bit blown out. For that, you can turn on HDR mode which will bring a bit more detail back into the bright and the very dark parts of your image but you can’t use Rocksteady when you’re shooting an HDR. So that means that you can really only use HDR when you’re standing.

Photos taken with the DJI Osmo action actually turned out pretty good but you can apply an automatic lens correction to that but the images themselves came out pretty nice which is kind of similar to what you get on an iPhone. There’s plenty of resolution to crop in. If you want some more flexibility for post-processing, you can also shoot in DNG RAW format which will give you a whole bunch more space to adjust all sorts of things in your image processing tool but it’s not the same as using a mirrorless or DSLR. There’s a number of different modes available on the DJI Osmo action at the quick switch button is actually really easy and convenient to this trouble between all of the different modes.

VIDEO QUALITY:

GoPro Hero 7 Black

The biggest improvement. in this is that a video stabilization or as GoPro likes to call it: HYPER SMOOTH STABILIZATION. The previous GoPros do have stabilization, but this is nothing compared to the GoPro Hero 7 Black. Although the Hero 7 has a slightly improved but similar processor to the Hero 6, the stabilization performance is a combination of new hardware and software, so, not just an improved firmware or a patch.

You can use this up to 60 frames per second, even in 4k and that’s another difference with previous versions of stabilization. But still, it does have its limits. So, it’s not available in higher frame rates like 120 or 240 frames a second. However, you can still use the older electronic image stabilization or also called standard stabilization on some other resolutions combined with a higher frame rate, like 1080p with 120 frames a second.

Both the Hero 5 and Hero 7 can record 4k video with 30 frames a second and they both use the same GoPro color profile. The Hero 7 has a lot more vibrance or saturation in the picture. I prefer the color profile of the Hero 7. But if this is not your taste, you can always use the Pro Tune option. This option lets you manually control color, white balance, shutter speed and more. Also, in low-light the Hero 7 performs pretty well for a small camera. I think it’s totally acceptable with the ISO noise.

The GoPro handled the recording of the snowy area very well. On the Auto settings nothing was under or overexposed. On the Hero 7, you will get a lot more details in a snowy surface. So, it seems that they improved a lot on that part. But still, if you’re going to record something in full sunny daylight conditions, then I would recommend to pop on an ND filter.

They’ve also added some new features, like a timer in Photo mode. Finally, GoPro! The touchscreen also seems to work a bit better with this new layout. It’s not as good as a screen on a high-end smartphone, but still one of the best that I’ve seen on any action camera. Also, voice control still works as good as before.

Another more interesting feature, in my opinion, is the new Time Warp video function. We already had the Time-Lapse video function, which were essentially a bunch of photos stitched together. But this was only great when you would lock the camera down. If you used it while moving, then it would look like fast motion video. But now, with this Time-Warp video function you can also create stabilized time-lapse videos while moving. Also, the old-fashion time-lapse video still works fine, as long as you can put down the camera.

DJI Osmo Action

The DJI Osmo action can record full 4k video at 60 frames per second and if you go down to 1080p which is 1920 by 1080, you can shoot up to 240 frames per second slow motion.

It’s got a very large field of view with a 145 degrees which is very similar to the GoPro but it’s fixed, so you can’t actually change it on the DJI Osmo action.

The Rocksteady is DJI’s proprietary EIS which is electronic image stabilization which is in-camera stabilization done in software works really well. It gives you really nice and smooth footage even when I was running. However, sometimes you may notice a little bit of a wobble which is due to the way the software tries to stabilize the image. Also, note that enabling Rocksteady will crop into that really wide field of view because it needs those extra pixels along the edges to do the actual stabilization. When Rocksteady disabled, it’s really not a nice piece of footage, it is really shaky and not nice at all even though you have that wide a field of view, so I would recommend just leave Rocksteady on all the time. 

For walking without Rocksteady, the footage is not gonna come out nice because the DJI Osmo action can shoot full 4k at 60 frames per second means you get nice, smooth, slow-motion, straight out of the box without much trouble and because you can shoot it up to 240 frames per second which is pretty insane at full 1080p. You can get some really really nice-looking slow-motion shots just be aware that using high slow-motion will usually make artificial lights with any scene flicker a little bit.

When I did take the Osmo action out at night though I did find that the low-light performance was really not that great, even at 4k 60 frames per second the image turned out kind of muddy and just a bit dirty. It’s it’s not a camera that I will recommend if you’re trying to do low-light videography or photography because the DJI Osmo action has a front facing screen, it’s kind of invites itself to be used as a vlogging camera.

In vlogging, the image is nice and steady because it’s got rock steady enabled and because there’s a screen on the front of the camera, you can actually see what’s in view. Due to the wide field of view of the lens as well, you can capture everything around you as well.

There are the limitations around Rocksteady and that is that you can’t use it in HDR mode. So, I wouldn’t recommend using HDR mode when you’re actually trying to walk around. It just works when you’re standing.

AUDIO:

The audio, on the previous GoPros the microphone needed some improvement. I mean, it wasn’t awfully bad but still, if you only looked at the camera it already made this rumbling noise. On the Hero 7 this is still there, but it has improved a lot and I also think that it sounds a lot clearer.

DJI Osmo Action

The DJI Osmo action has two microphones one on the top and one on the side. The audio quality is okay, it’s not horrible but it’s not amazing either because the DJI Osmo Action has a microphone on the top and on the side. So, there’s none actually facing the person in front of the camera.

WHICH TO BUY?

Osmo Action brings a lot of innovation such as the dual screen setup, the web feature, HDR video, and so on. It beats the GoPro in a lot of categories such as the handling, user interface, display quality, smartphone app, and so on. Unfortunately, it cannot match the image quality of the Hero 7 black because of that over sharpening at the moment. That won’t be that big of a deal for consumer usage, especially if you watch the footage on your smartphone but if you want to use action camera footage together with 4k footage from mirrorless camera, GoPro will provide much better image quality.

Other things that keep Osmo action from being the GoPro Hero are the leg on screen if you are using Rocksteady and also the leg of options to use an external mic. I hope the DJ will continue improving Osmo Action because they might be just firmware update away from having that GoPro.